TGIFF! - Bright Stripes

Bright Stripes - Close up

Welcome to Thank Goodness It's Finally Finished (TGIFF), where every finish deserves a celebration!

Pull up a chair, grab a cup of something delicious, and let's see what quilty goodness has been finished this week.

Bright Stripes

Happy Dance! Happy Dance!

Bright Stripes is done and I simply adore it! I'm so glad I put on my big girl pants to cut into my little stash of Bright Remix by Robert Kaufman for this project.

For those who are here for the first time, this is my test of my Falling for Stripes pattern (coming soon).

Bright Stripes - Front

Quilting Detail - Double line
separating the spirals
from the straight lines

This is quilted with white 50 wt. Aurifil thread (#2024) with spirals, a small double line around the outer spirals and then straight lines.

Quilting Detail

The spirals were started with free motion quilting, but then I switched to my walking foot so that I'd get more even and uniformly-spaced spirals. I'd seen this on someone else's blog, but now I can't remember who it was. Sorry! One lesson learned was to do at least 10 turns of the spiral to make the centre free motion spiral large enough so that the walking foot can maintain a smoother curve.

I love effect the effect of the spirals done this way, but it took twice as long to do it as I had planned and there are a ton of threads to bury at the end. There was a lot of knee lifting, turning, and pulling the quilt through the throat of the machine for this quilt. It's hard on the shoulders and wrists. It's worth it though.

For the back, I took one strip of scrap Bright Remix and some white. Simple. I like it.

Bright Stripes - Back

I also used the Bright Remix for the binding, just like I did with What The FMQAYGQAL? I love, love, love Bright Remix as a binding.

Quiltography: "Bright Stripes," by Michèle-Renée Charbonneau, Ottawa, 45" by 57", 2013.

Oh, and if you haven't had a chance to enter my Sew Sisters Birthday Giveaway, it closes Monday...
This was one of my Q3 goals for the 2013 Finish-along with Leanne at She Can Quilt. Yay! 

Bright Stripes - A Work in Progress

If you missed my Sew Sisters giveaway post, check it out. It's simply Scrumptious (couldn't resist)! Great book and wine recommendations so far!

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I always like reading about people's thought processes so I thought I'd share what quilting designs I've been considering for Bright Stripes, my test of my soon-to-be Falling For Stripes pattern. Figuring out the quilting used to intimidate me -- so many options! -- but now I rather enjoy it because I can test out ideas using the trial quilting sheets before committing.

For the original Falling For Stripes, I did square spirals in all of the stripe blocks and different straight line motifs in the yellow and orange sections. For the pink, burgundy and purple sections, I echoed the blocks for the most part about 1" apart. 

For Bright Stripes, I wanted a different feel with the quilting. Something that would soften or contrast with the feel of the crisp white background and rainbow stripe squares. Apologies for the photos -- I can't use the flash with the trial quilting sheets.

Some spiral quilting?

Yes, but I don't like how it goes off the edge. Different edge treatment?

I like the straight lines, but the corner is not doing it for me. Maybe take the spirals all the way to the corner to separate the straight lines?

Yes, I think so. I did the spirals on all the blocks, but found that there's a lot of space along the edges that I didn't want to be all straight lines. Back under the trial quilting sheet to play some more. 

That's looking better. Come back Friday when I host TGIFF! to see what I decided to do. You are also most welcome to link up one (or more!) of your own recent finishes.

I'm linking in to WIP Wednesday at The Needle and Thread Network and to W.i.P. Wednesday at Freshly Pieced. Thanks Monika and Lee for hosting such great linkies!